Editor Charles H. Smith's Note: Remarks printed in the October and November 1908 issues of The
Delineator in a several part article entitled 'Are the Dead Alive?' (by one of the magazine's staff). Mostly
derived from other Wallace writings (see S662 listing in Wallace bibliography, this site). Original
pagination indicated within double brackets. To link directly to this page, connect with:
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S662.htm

[[p. 542]]The Facts Beat Me

The most eminent of living British thinkers. Codiscoverer with Darwin of the theory of evolution.
Author of "Man's Place in the Universe," "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," etc.

The facts [of Spiritualism] become more and more assured, more and more removed from
anything that modern science teaches or modern philosophy speculates upon. The facts beat me. I
will mention a case taken from my own personal experience. I had a brother with whom I spent
seven years of my early life. He died more than fifty years ago. This brother before I was with
him had a friend in London whose name was William Martin; my brother's name was William
Wallace. I did not know his friend's name was William, because he always spoke of him as
Martin. I knew nothing more. Attending a séance in the city of Washington, D. C., I received, to
my great astonishment, a message to this effect: "I am William Martin; I write for my old friend,
William Wallace, to tell you that he will, on another occasion when he can, communicate with
you." Only one other person in America knew of the relations between my brother and Martin, or
knew my brother's name, and that was my brother in California.

[[p. 852]]The Dead Have Never Really Died

Codiscoverer with Darwin of the theory of evolution. Author of "Man's Place in the Universe,"
"Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," etc.

During the last sixty years evidence has been accumulating in every part of the world which
affords demonstration that the so-called dead have never really died at all, but have passed into a
new and higher stage of existence. Many of these are able to communicate with us and most of
them assure us that when they wake from the sleep we call death they find themselves much
more alive than ever they were before. And this is only what we might expect; for we all feel that
our mental faculties are to some extent clogged and stifled by the garment of flesh, and that only
when in the most perfect health do our higher faculties attain their fullest expression.

This rapid entrance on a state of spiritual well-being and happiness seems to be very general
among those who have led ordinarily good and natural lives, but is by no means universal. Those
who have led selfish or sensual lives, or have given way to evil passions of any kind, have a
different awakening, into a world of darkness or gloom, often of solitude for a longer or shorter
period and infinitely varied in the surroundings according to their previous lives. But whatever
germs of good are in them are ultimately developed through the kind ministrations of spirit-helpers, and thenceforth progress towards a higher and happier state depends mainly on
themselves.

We have all kinds of phenomena which are inexplicable even to the scientific mind, except
on a spiritualistic hypothesis. We have the alteration of the weight of bodies which has often
been tested. We have the phenomena of articles of various kinds being moved without human
agency, such as chairs, tables and musical instruments. More curious is the conveying of bodies
to a distance; flowers and fruits are the most common of these, but also other bodies such as
letters and various small objects have been conveyed long distances--sometimes several miles.

Further, we have that curious phenomenon which is recorded more or less throughout
history, the raising or levitation of human bodies into the air and sometimes conveying them a
considerable distance. More remarkable by far than these, because beyond all human power to
produce, is the tying of knots on endless cords, the taking of coins out of sealed boxes, and the
passage of solid rings over [[p. 853]] the body far too large for them to pass over by any natural
means. All these things have happened in the presence of careful scientists and their assistants; I
have frequently myself seen, in good light, sticks and handkerchiefs pass through a curtain.

We have chemical phenomena. Chief among these is that of protection from the effects of
fire. Mr. D. D. Home, deceased now some years, and perhaps the most remarkable medium that
ever lived, used to take from a grate a brilliant, red-hot mass of coals, carry them about the room
in his hands, and by his peculiar power indicate certain persons who were able to have them
placed in their hands, and placing them there they would experience no unpleasant results.

There is Small Chance for Fraud

In view of the numerous men who have investigated this matter and given their decision, we
may entirely throw aside the idea that imposture, only in slight measure, has produced these
phenomena.

Scientific men almost invariably assume that in this inquiry they should be permitted at the
very outset to impose conditions, and if under such conditions nothing happens, they consider it a
proof of imposture or delusion. But they well know that in other branches of research, nature, not
they, determines the essential conditions without a compliance with which no experiment will
succeed.

The underlying laws of the testimony of evidence are simple. If a man of good judgment, in
full possession of his senses and a reputation for honesty, tells us of a certain fact which he
witnessed we are inclined, in the absence of contradictory evidence, to believe the fact that he
states. If ten men, similarly endowed, say they witnessed the same thing, we feel reasonably
certain; whereas the concurrent independent testimony of a thousand sincere capable men may be
said to make assertion a certainty.

As I have already said, in my introduction to "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," outside of
modern spiritualism I know nothing in recognized science to support the belief in immortality.
Up to the time when I first became acquainted with the facts of spiritualism, I was a confirmed
philosophical skeptic. My curiosity was at first excited by some slight but inexplicable
phenomena occurring in a friend's family, and my desire for knowledge and love of truth forced
me to continue the inquiry. The facts compelled me to accept them as such long before I could
accept the spiritual explanation of them; there was at that time no place in my fabric of thought
into which it could be fitted. By slow degrees a place was made; but it was made, not by any
preconceived or theoretical opinions, but by the continuous action of fact after fact which could
not be got rid of in any other way than by accepting the explanation of them which spiritualism
presents.

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